Decreasing payments to providers will not help the problem. Medicare payments are so low, providers will continue to reject Medicare patients.
I read a few years ago the highest amount of money spent by Medicare is in the last year of life of the patient. We have to take a look at this. I recall recently that there is a new prostate cancer drug that costs aout $90,000. It extends life for terminal prostate cancer patients for 3 months. I cannot remember the name of the drug, but Medicare approved it for their formulary.
This is also the unspoken issue. We keep people alive for SO long ...and sometimes for only a short time — yet we want all of this treatment to be available — we desperately want it. If we want it, we have to resign ourselves to the fact that it HAS to be paid for ... or something. I don’t know the answer ...but it’s true.
On a daily basis we keep people alive who normally, naturally, would have died in earlier times. A simple heart med allows someone to lay in a bed alive, for weeks at a time ...